Bigfoot in Oregon

Bigfoot

In

Oregon

            I feel that it is only fitting that I pay homage to my Pacific Northwest homeland and write of its most well known creature, Bigfoot.

I've heard so many different tales growing up about this illusive creature, and although I’m sure now that the majority of those tales were mean pranks by my older brother, wanting to scare me. I’m not so sure though how a creature with so many recorded sightings could not be based in some sort of fact. Some people act as if the possibility of an animal like Bigfoot to exist would be preposterous, but I don’t see anything strange or inherently wrong with the theory.

I’m hopeful that someday though that someone will find concrete evidence of Bigfoot’s existence. At this point, I don’t think anything short of a body will prove to the majority of the world that the creature exists. Until then though, Bigfoot will surely keep lurching in the corners of our minds, and wandering the distance woods of this wonderful state, and others. 

Sorry for the month of being MIA!

Sorry, I haven't posted anything this whole month. February really slipped through my fingers, but that's just cause life has given me so many great things to enjoy and cherish.

I'll do my best to update soon!

Does the ghost of Thelma Taylor haunt Cathedral Park in Portland Oregon?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Cathedral_Park_St_Johns_Bridge_-_Portland_Oregon.jpg

Thelma Taylor was only 15 years old when she was abducted, raped, and murdered under the St. John’s Bridge. Her brutal demise shocked the Portland, Oregon community and to this day her tale continues to be told.

At the time of Thelma’s murder the area under the St. John’s Bridge, which is now a park today, was overgrown and covered with brush. It wasn’t a place that people were likely to pass by often, and in that respect, was the perfect place for her killer to hold her captive.

Thelma was held prisoner under the bridge for almost a week, where she was continually beaten and raped, and eventually died.

It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Howard Galbraith, the “honorary mayor” of St. John’s, began trying to clean up the area under the bridge.  It wasn’t until 1980 though the area under the St. John’s Bridge was opened as Cathedral Park, named after the cathedral looking arches of the St. John’s Bridge that stands guard above it.

According to local lore, every summer, during the time when her murder took place so many years ago, screams and sounds of a girl struggling for her life can be heard coming from Cathedral Park. Some even say that police have been routinely called out to the park during the summer to investigate the screams, but nothing has ever been found.

Perhaps it’s the horror of this crime that makes Thelma’s spirit stay trapped, reliving her last days on this earth. Or perhaps we are just too captivated by her grotesque tale, and as with all ghost stories there is a sense of morbid fascination that comes with each re-telling.

The only happy ending that I’ve found, if it can even be called a happy ending, is that her captor and killer, Leland Morris, was caught nearly a week after her murder and confessed to the crime. He was convicted and executed in the gas chamber at the Oregon State Prison in 1953.

 http://home.comcast.net/~hmb01/ghosts/TAYLOR01a.jpg

The Oregon Vortex

http://www.oregonvortex.com/photographs/houseofmystery.jpg

The Oregon Vortex, first an old mining property and later opened as a public attraction, is perhaps one of the most mystifying plots of land in Southern Oregon. The vortex is located in Gold Hill, Oregon, just a 20 or so minute drive south from Medford. The land is home to strange optical illusions, such as someone appearing to grow taller or shorter depending on where they’re standing or balls being able to roll up hill within the House of Mystery.

The property belonged first to the Old Grey Eagle Mining Company and the House of Mystery, which still stands today, and was built in 1904. John Lister began conducting experiments on the property and within the House of Mystery in the early 1920’s. He wasn’t the first to discover the lands unique properties though. Native Americans from the area refused to set foot on the land. They stated that since no animal would enter the space, then it must be “forbidden ground” and should not be disturbed.

I’ve been to the Oregon Vortex, and although it’s been years since the trip, I do remember the sense of peace I got when I entered that piece of land. (Although, quite honestly, that peace might have just come from getting a reprieve from sitting in the backseat of a car with my brother on our family vacation) I’d love to travel there again and view the place and experience it with the mindset of actually trying to understand it, rather than just experience it as an attraction.

Now, the House of Mystery is not the only paranormal tale from Gold Hill, Oregon. It’s been rumored that the ghost of John Lister, the founder of the Oregon Vortex, haunts the land, still looking for an answer as to the properties of the land itself. Several other ghosts are said to haunt the nearby Gold Hill cemetery also, such as a dark hooded figure, yet it seems to me like there’s always a dark hooded figure haunting every cemetery. I mean, they really wouldn’t be cemeteries if they weren’t haunted, right? But then again, maybe this is just a super charged piece of land and we have yet to understand or appreciate its greatness. For the moment though, it seems all that anyone can do is pay admittance and enjoy the guided tour.

The Ballechin House

                                    http://www.dark-stories.com/eng/the_ballechin_house.htm

I’ve always been drawn to the paranormal. I was always the one freaking my friends out with whatever random ghost story I’d read or heard. Ghosts have always fascinated me from a young age, and ghost stories were something that I constantly digested. Here is one of my favorite tales…

The Ballechin House in Scotland, as the story goes, was built in 1806 and inherited by Robert Stuart in 1834. Robert at the time was enlisted in the military and living in India and did not return to the house until 1850. While he was in India, the story goes that he had come to believe in reincarnation and transmigration of the soul, or the ability for the soul to live on after death and inhabit another non-human body. Now, Robert had a love for dogs, especially his favorite black spaniel and it is said that before he died he said that he would return as a dog.

After his death, the house was then inherited by Robert’s nephew, and his nephew immediately shot all the dogs, fearing that his Uncle would return as one of them. After the death of the dogs is when strange happenings begin to be reported, such as hearing dogs throughout the house, gunshots, and angry voices.

Some claim that since his nephew shot the dogs, Robert Stuart became an angry disembodied spirit and haunted the house in protest of his nephew’s cruel act. The house was demolished in the 1960’s.

There were also several paranormal research groups that did studies at the Ballechin House, and a book was published in 1899 with the alleged accounts.